There's a lot of data being collected on the farm, and often it's being done in a number of locations. The challenge facing farmers is moving that information into one place where the information can be analyzed for use in making decisions. One company has a new way to pull information in for improved use.

Conservis, a Minneapolis-based farm technology company, has developed a platform that enables growers to consolidate wide-ranging data and use it to make decisions and manage work activities across their operation. "Conservis is farm management software," says Lisa Hines, senior digital marketing manager, Conservis. "But it is more than farm management software, we work at the enterprise level."

That view of your operation allows you to manage not only tasks like planting, spraying and harvest where you gather information but match those jobs with resources used, like fertilizer, seed and crop protection products. This comprehensive look at what comes into your operation and what goes out provides you a more focused view of the business.

To enhance that work, the company has announced implementation of Machine Data Integration, which will automatically take production and harvest data directly from John Deere Operations Center and integrate it into the Conservis platform. "With this approach there's no manual intervention," explains Hines. "There's no need to retype the information." The information flows from the John Deere Operations Center into the Conservis software making it easy to compare Conservis planned activities and work order tasks to as-applied records from your equipment to easily identify and correct inefficiencies."

Previously, Conservis enabled farm operators to record what work was done and when in the Conservis mobile application, often times using the information from the machine monitor to complete these “tickets”, which the farm manager then uses to analyze completed work. The new machine data integration feature will enhance this data collection capability.

With this approach, users of John Deere Operations Center simply go to work and the information flows (once you give permission) to your Conservis account. This automatic flow offers more than the end to manual intervention. "It can make the data more accurate," Hines explained. "Operators don't always start or end a job accurately during busy times and there is always a risk of error when manually entering data. With this system, it's not a problem."

Using a new tool

Conservis is integrating with the John Deere Operations Center using the Ag Gateway ADAPT framework. This is an industry developed common platform for data sharing, and the first implementation of the system by the company. Using the common platform, however, opens the door for Conservis to work with others in the industry as well.

"As a company, we want to get data from as many points as we can," Hines said. "Leveraging the ADAPT framework allows opportunity for future integrations."

For farmers, more accurate data collection provides better decision-making information throughout the season. And this system will capture planting, spreading, spraying, and harvest information automatically from John Deere Operations Center into the Conservis platform. "When this is done manually, there are opportunities for some errors to enter the system," added Hines. "The real benefit, according to farmers we work with, is seasonal workers that may not be up to speed on using the start-stop system. It can take them time to do that, which is non-productive time. This eliminates that."

In a press statement announcing the new data integration, Michael Borman, senior vice president product and marketing, Conservis, commented: " This is a big step towards unifying data across the farm making data entry one less thing for work crews and managers to do during the busy production and harvest seasons. Providing growers with a single, unaltered source for their data eliminates the headache and heartburn of having to compare information in disparate, single-point systems. We look forward to expanding our machine data integration capabilities for growers in the near future."

The Conservis-John Deere Operations Center integration will be operational by harvest season. To learn more visit conserviscorp.com.